Opioids are widely used in patients with advanced cancers and other terminal diseases to reduce suffering. Opioids are narcotic medications that activate opioid receptors located in the central nervous system to relieve pain. Opioids, however, also react with receptors outside of the central nervous system, resulting in side effects including constipation, nausea, vomiting, urinary retention, and severe itching. Most notable are the effects in the gastrointestinal tract (GI) where opioids inhibit gastric emptying and propulsive motor activity of the intestine, thereby decreasing the rate of intestinal transit and producing constipation. The effectiveness of opioids for pain is often limited due to resultant side effects, which can be debilitating and often cause patients to cease use of opioid analgesics.
In addition to analgesic opioid induced side effects, studies have suggested that endogenous opioid compounds and receptors may also affect activity of the gastrointestinal (GI) tract and may be involved in normal regulation of intestinal motility and mucosal transport of fluids in both animals and man. (Koch, T. R, et al, Digestive Diseases and Sciences 1991, 36, 712-728; Schuller, A. G. P., et al., Society of Neuroscience Abstracts 1998, 24, 524, Reisine, T., and Pasternak, G., Goodman & Gilman's The Pharmacological Basis of Therapeutics Ninth Edition 1996, 521-555 and Bagnol, D., et at., Regui. Pept. 1993, 47, 259-273). Thus, an abnormal physiological level of endogenous compounds and/or receptor activity may lead to bowel dysfunction.
For example, patients who have undergone surgical procedures, especially surgery of the abdomen, often suffer from a particular bowel dysfunction, called post-operative (or post-surgical) ileus, that may be caused by fluctuations in natural opioid levels. Similarly, women who have recently given birth commonly suffer from post-partum ileus, which is thought to be caused by similar natural opioid fluctuations as a result of birthing stress. Gastrointestinal dysfunction associated with post-operative or post partum ileus can typically last for 3 to 5 days, with some severe cases lasting more than a week. Administration of opioid analgesics to a patient after surgery, which is now an almost universal practice, may exacerbate bowel dysfunction, thereby delaying recovery of normal bowel function, prolonging hospital stays, and increasing medical care costs.
Methylnaltrexone (“MNTX”) is a derivative of the opioid antagonist, naltrexone, whereby the amine is quarternized. MNTX is commonly provided as a salt, for example, a bromide salt. The bromide salt of MNTX is also known in the literature as: methylnaltrexone bromide; N-methylnaltrexone bromide; naltrexone methobromide; naltrexone methyl bromide; and MRZ 2663BR. MNTX was first reported by Goldberg et al. as described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,176,186. It is believed that addition of the methyl group to the ring nitrogen of naltrexone forms a charged compound with greater polarity and less liposolubility than naltrexone, preventing MNTX from crossing the blood-brain barrier in humans. As a consequence, MNTX exerts its effects in the periphery rather than in the central nervous system with the advantage that it does not counteract the analgesic effects of opioids on the central nervous system.
Generally, pharmaceutical compositions require a high level of purity to meet regulated standards for drug quality and purity. For example, during synthesis and/or storage of MNTX, impurities may form which may hinder the therapeutic effects of MNTX and/or may be toxic if present in high enough quantity. As such, it is desirable to have the ability to determine the purity of MNTX. To that end, it is important to identify; isolate, and chemically characterize impurities and degradants which can be used in chromatographic procedures as standards to confirm the purity of MNTX.